http://www.mappedup.com/html/ Real-time, geographical RSS for your site and desktop. en-us 51.45 5.467 Fri, 12 Mar 2010 22:47:19 +0100 Wed, 22 Oct 2008 01:46:42 +0200 30.5081 -97.6786 Wed, 20 May 2009 14:00:00 +0200 41.9 12.4833 Wed, 08 Jul 2009 16:45:09 +0200 52.35 4.91667 Wed, 08 Jul 2009 16:41:14 +0200 54.2 16.1833 Wed, 08 Jul 2009 14:43:39 +0200 48.8667 2.33333 Wed, 08 Jul 2009 14:40:00 +0200 45.75 4.85 Wed, 08 Jul 2009 14:35:01 +0200 35.685 139.751 Wed, 08 Jul 2009 14:34:50 +0200 Site news May we draw your attention to our latest email text-only newsletter, a weekly corral of all our Mobile and Wireless News and reviews.…Offloading malware protection to the cloud]]> 51.5 -0.116667 Wed, 08 Jul 2009 14:34:37 +0200 48.2 16.3667 Wed, 08 Jul 2009 14:30:00 +0200




]]> 40.7142 -74.0064 Wed, 08 Jul 2009 14:20:09 +0200
Tales of Monkey Island Chapter 1 е разработена във версия за РС. Вече е достъпно и нейното демо. Можете да си го изтеглите от тук. По-късно щ се появи и версията на Tales of Monkey Island Chapter 1 за Wii.]]> 42.6833 23.3167 Wed, 08 Jul 2009 14:17:00 +0200 55.6667 12.5833 Wed, 08 Jul 2009 14:11:38 +0200 52.25 21 Wed, 08 Jul 2009 14:00:00 +0200 55.7522 37.6156 Wed, 08 Jul 2009 13:18:00 +0200 51.5 -0.116667 Wed, 08 Jul 2009 13:15:59 +0200
Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks. Later this year we will open-source its code, and netbooks running Google Chrome OS will be available for consumers in the second half of 2010. Because we're already talking to partners about the project, and we'll soon be working with the open source community, we wanted to share our vision now so everyone understands what we are trying to achieve.

View Full Article: The Official Google Blog]]> 38.5892 -121.302 Wed, 08 Jul 2009 13:09:27 +0200 32.8156 34.9892 Wed, 08 Jul 2009 13:03:00 +0200 55.7522 37.6156 Wed, 08 Jul 2009 12:39:51 +0200
Blowing Off Steam
At The Rocks, the girls continue on without any direction but are surprise when Lauren, Steve and a new coach arrive. Emily, Payson and Kaylie [...]]]> 50.2167 12.5333 Wed, 08 Jul 2009 12:30:50 +0200 ]]> 35.685 139.751 Wed, 08 Jul 2009 12:16:00 +0200 51.45 5.46667 Wed, 08 Jul 2009 12:07:20 +0200 52.25 21 Wed, 08 Jul 2009 11:17:30 +0200 47.5 19.0833 Wed, 08 Jul 2009 10:41:00 +0200 52.05 4.5 Wed, 08 Jul 2009 09:38:42 +0200 50.0833 14.4667 Wed, 08 Jul 2009 09:13:00 +0200






]]> 45.6389 -122.66 Wed, 08 Jul 2009 08:00:00 +0200 52.25 21 Wed, 08 Jul 2009 07:35:42 +0200 52.4167 9.6 Wed, 08 Jul 2009 04:45:40 +0200


]]> 40.7142 -74.0064 Wed, 08 Jul 2009 04:35:41 +0200 50.0833 14.4667 Wed, 08 Jul 2009 04:25:50 +0200


]]> 40.7142 -74.0064 Wed, 08 Jul 2009 04:21:31 +0200 -23.95 -46.3333 Wed, 08 Jul 2009 04:05:47 +0200 60.05 10.1833 Wed, 08 Jul 2009 02:50:07 +0200 37.775 -122.418 Wed, 08 Jul 2009 00:45:00 +0200 32.7833 -96.8 Wed, 08 Apr 2009 23:54:28 +0200 Äußeres. Durch die das Edele Desgin und die Klavieroptik das Gerät zum Edel-Klapp-Handy. Es wurde mit einer 2MegaPixel-Kamera bestückt und konzentriert sich im Wesentlichen auf die nötigsten Features moderner Mobilfunkgeräte.]]> 49.3 10.65 Wed, 02 Sep 2009 14:02:00 +0200 ]]> 47.5 19.0833 Wed, 02 Jan 2008 14:48:24 +0100 Leistungsbeschreibungen, Vorberechnungen, Angebotspreise, Aufmaße, Nachträge, Leistungsstände und Zahlungsfreigaben sind exemplarisch als solche Datenquellen zu sehen.
Damit aktiv und zuverlässig mit diesen Daten gearbeitet werden kann, ist es deshalb besonders wichtig, dass alle Aufgaben und Tätigkeiten genau definiert und zugeteilt werden. Jede Bearbeitungsphase - von der Ausschreibung bis zur Abrechnung - muss koordiniert und organisiert werden. Besonders dann, wenn mehrere Projekte gleichzeitig erfolgreich abgewickelt werden sollen.
Diese Problematik gilt es auch in AVA-Systemen abzubilden.
Damit alle Beteiligten ihren Beitrag reibungslos und nach ihrem Verantwortungsbereich leisten können, sollte AVA-Software nicht nur Mehrbenutzer- und Netzwerkfähig sein, sondern auch ein zuverlässig zu konfigurierendes Rechte und Rollensystem bieten. Genau dieses verfolgen wir mit ARCHITEXT Pallas®.Unser bewährtes Rechte und Rollenkonzept der AVA-Systeme ARCHITEXT excellent bzw. ARCHITEXT on Oracle® bieten wir auch für Pallas® an. Dank modernster Datenbank-Technologie ist das AVA-Modul Reche+Rollen noch komfortabler zu bedienen. Dabei sind die Zugriffsrechte der Anwender in den verschiedenen Bearbeitungsstufen noch transparenter. Finden Sie es herraus...
Mehr zum Pallas® Modul Reche+Rollen können Sie gerne im persönlichen Gespräch erfahren. Gerne erarbeiten mir mit Ihnen zusammen ein Konzept für Ihre Organisationsstruktur.
Bauen Sie auf unsere langjährige Erfahrungen aus der gewachsenen Zusammenarbeit mit großen Vergabestellen und Baubehörden.
Interesse? Nutzen Sie für den Erstkontakt einfach unser Kontaktformular, wir setzen uns dann umgehend mit Ihnen in Verbindung.]]> 49.8706 8.64944 Wed, 01 Jul 2009 08:51:17 +0200 51.3833 10.4667 Tue, 30 Jun 2009 14:32:53 +0200 Since my last Songbird experiences were not that great I thought it would be a great
idea to take the newly released 1.2 version of Songbird for a spin.


It's said that the new version is faster and more stable. I installed 3 hours ago
and I still cannot use it since it's syncing with iTunes ever since.


�


More on that topic when songbird is ready....


Source: http://getsongbird.com/

]]> 50.6833 10.9 Tue, 30 Jun 2009 13:46:46 +0200 When the iPhone was first released, there was a lot of hype about it offering true push email on the go for users. Everyone hoped that this [...]]]> 41.85 -87.65 Tue, 29 Jul 2008 02:54:50 +0200
And I kept on finding pages that look like the one below - same formatting, even.

When I first noticed these pages the middle of last week, I took them for a stupidly overzealous SEO who was [...]]]> 39.9606 -75.6058 Tue, 23 Sep 2008 13:41:05 +0200 50.9 4.43333 Tue, 20 Feb 2007 14:37:07 +0100 40.7142 -74.0064 Tue, 19 May 2009 05:14:45 +0200








]]> 55.8333 -4.25 Tue, 17 Mar 2009 16:41:05 +0100 -8.65 115.217 Tue, 07 Jul 2009 21:01:00 +0200 Me.ShowInTaskbar = False
tmrTweet.Enabled = True

.csharpcode, .csharpcode pre
{
font-size: small;
color: black;
font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace;
background-color: #ffffff;
/*white-space: pre;*/
}
.csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; }
.csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; }
.csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; }
.csharpcode .str { color: #006080; }
.csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; }
.csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; }
.csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; }
.csharpcode .html { color: #800000; }
.csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; }
.csharpcode .alt
{
background-color: #f4f4f4;
width: 100%;
margin: 0em;
}
.csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; }



The following code in Button’s Click event will validate Twitter username, Password and save it to My.Settings.

If txtUserName.Text.Trim = "" Then
lblSatus.Text = "Please enter Twitter Username"
txtUserName.Focus()
Exit Sub
End If
If txtPassword.Text.Trim = "" Then
lblSatus.Text = "Please enter Twitter Password"
txtPassword.Focus()
Exit Sub
End If

lblSatus.Text = ""


'Check for valid Username and Password and then Save Settings
Dim objTwitter As New Yedda.Twitter
Dim Updates As XmlDocument

Try 'Try Logging in
Updates = objTwitter.GetUserTimelineAsXML(txtUserName.Text.Trim, txtPassword.Text.Trim)
My.Settings.UserName = txtUserName.Text.Trim
My.Settings.Password = txtPassword.Text.Trim
Me.WindowState = FormWindowState.Minimized
Me.ShowInTaskbar = False
tmrTweet.Enabled = True
Catch ex As Exception
MsgBox("Failed to Login to Twitter with the values supplied. Please check your login details.")
txtUserName.Focus()
Exit Sub
End Try

Yedda library is used to login to Twitter to check for valid username and password. The Label lblSatus is used to display any error messages.

Add the following code to the Checkbox’s CheckChanged event which will add the required registry keys to start this app on Window’s startup

If chkStartAutomatic.Checked = True Then       My.Settings.AutomaticStart = True
Dim regKey As RegistryKey
regKey = Registry.CurrentUser.OpenSubKey("Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run", True)
regKey.SetValue(Application.ProductName, Application.ExecutablePath)
regKey.Close()
Else
My.Settings.AutomaticStart = False
Dim regKey As RegistryKey
regKey = Registry.CurrentUser.OpenSubKey("Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run", True)
regKey.DeleteValue(Application.ProductName)
regKey.Close()
End If

The following code in Timer’s Tick event will do the job of checking Twitter Timeline every one minute and Shutdown/Restart/Log off the system based on the Tweet.

If My.Settings.UserName.Trim = "" Then
Exit Sub
Else
'Check for new Tweet
Dim objTwitter As New Yedda.Twitter
Dim Updates As XmlDocument
Dim node As XmlNode
Try 'Try Logging in
Updates = objTwitter.GetUserTimelineAsXML(My.Settings.UserName.Trim, My.Settings.Password.Trim)
Catch ex As Exception
MsgBox("Error : Failed to Login to Twitter with the values supplied. Please check your login details.")
Exit Sub
End Try
Try
node = Updates.SelectSingleNode("/statuses/status/id")
If node.InnerText.Trim My.Settings.LastID.Trim Then
'Compare the Tweet ID to check for new tweets
My.Settings.LastID = node.InnerText.Trim
node = Updates.SelectSingleNode("/statuses/status/text")
ProcessTweet(node.InnerText.Trim)
End If
Catch ex As Exception
Exit Sub
End Try
End If

If the Tweet is new then we process the tweet.

Private Sub ProcessTweet(ByVal Tweet As String)
If Tweet = "Shutdown" Then
System.Diagnostics.Process.Start("shutdown", "-s -f -t 100") 'Shutdown
ElseIf Tweet = "Logoff" Then
System.Diagnostics.Process.Start("shutdown", "-l -f -t 100") 'Logoff
ElseIf Tweet = "Restart" Then
System.Diagnostics.Process.Start("shutdown", "-r -f -t 100") ' Restart
End If
End Sub

The Context Menu strip has two menu items. They are Edit Setting and Exit.



Add the following code the “Edit Settings” Client event and Notify Icon’s Mouse Double Click Event.

tmrTweet.Enabled = False
txtUserName.Text = My.Settings.UserName.Trim
txtPassword.Text = My.Settings.Password.Trim
If My.Settings.AutomaticStart = True Then chkStartAutomatic.Checked = True
Me.WindowState = FormWindowState.Normal
Me.ShowInTaskbar = True

TweetMyPC runs silently on startup. To Edit Settings double click/Right Click the notify icon.

Working



Conclusion

Even though TweetMyPC is a simple app it has lot of interesting potential. Think about switching off your TV or washing machine using Twitter. It is possible with a little extra hardware and a simple .net program. TweetMyPC is free and open source. Feel free to download the sour code and add more functionality.

About The Author

Shoban Kumar is a Senior Software Engineer working for Allianz Cornhill India. Programming is his passion. He also writes about .net in http://www.dotnetcurry.com/ and an active participator in stackoverflow and speaker in Microsoft user group sessions. You also can follow him in Twitter.]]> 47.6064 -122.331 Tue, 07 Jul 2009 19:53:59 +0200 47.6064 -122.331 Tue, 07 Jul 2009 19:52:00 +0200 50.6 4.33333 Tue, 07 Jul 2009 19:42:10 +0200 52.5167 13.4 Tue, 07 Jul 2009 19:36:00 +0200 40.4 -3.68333 Tue, 07 Jul 2009 18:44:42 +0200 par d'éminentes personnalités qui savent de quoi elles parlent,
il est tout à fait approprié de faire connaitre leurs observations,
pour notre sécurité alimentaire.


Alors,


sur l'excellente musique d'André Gagnon, "la fin du jour", qui évoque le rythme lent d'installation de la nocivité,
cette vidéo (texte) de 13'34 sur "l'aspartame, le tueur silencieux - Monsanto", mérite le détour,
avec les rubriques : - qu'est ce que l'aspartame ? - des études douteuses - des effets secondaires troublants - où se cache t'il ? - ressources.]]> 48.8667 2.33333 Tue, 07 Jul 2009 18:29:57 +0200 37.775 -122.418 Tue, 07 Jul 2009 16:00:59 +0200 São [...]


Posts relacionados:Como criar temas para Wordpress. Um tutorial.
O ThAdobe lança eLearning Suite.
A AdTriplify – Três vezes um motor de busca.
O Tr]]> 40.6333 -8.65 Tue, 07 Jul 2009 15:00:00 +0200 At one meeting, it was was really, really confidential. It was a one-on-one and across the table from Steve sat the Project Manager. These kind of solitary meetings took place either because you're doing something very wrong... or you're getting canned.
"Hey Steve," the project manager started, "I need a fresh set of eyes on a performance problem we've been facing with the EC Unit."
Steve perked up at this. And not just because he wasn't getting fired, but because the EC Unit — EC being short for Electrical Capabilities — was a pretty big deal as of late. It was a "switch" on one of their new automated testing stations with hundreds of relays configurable to variety of electrical ratings: 50 Milliamps at 0.01 Volts, 400 Volts at 200 Amps, you name it. Being about the size of a VW Bug and having a panel of blinking indicator lights which actually meant something, it was an impressive sight... and had an equally impressive budget to boot.
The project manager continued, "it's taking in the neighborhood of eight hours to run through an engineer test script and that is really hurting us on turnaround. If you can crack this nut, you just might be the hero of the project."
A HERO'S WORK
Eagerly, Steve got to work on familiarizing himself with the EC's software. Basically, the idea behind the program was that, as part of a test, the engineer would write a statement like "Apply X amps at Y volts to circuit C with waveform..." and the program would compute the least electrically expensive path.
Developed by the primary contractor, the code weighed in at about 5,000 lines of Pascal and, with a myriad of functions and high math, it was certainaly no picnic. For days, he poured through the logic. After single stepping though the program and creating enough flow charts and flow diagrams to cover two walls, nothing jumped out at him. However, when Steve added a global counter in every function in the application (as there was no profiler available), he hit paydirt.
While most functions were called proportionally to the number of connections to be analyzed, the following worst offending function was called over a billion times.


function eval_strings_are_equal(s1:string[255], s2:string[255]):Integer

�reasonably efficient string compare function implementation here�
end

The funny thing about that innocent looking function was how the program handled the parameters. Can you see it? No matter what the size of the string data — even as few as two characters — the program would copy two 255 byte sequences to the stack, one byte at a time. Steve found that if he changed the parameter declaration to the *even* number 256, the parameters would be copied to the stack *two* bytes at a time and reduced the runtime by half!
But, was 256 bytes...overkill? Steve looked further and found that the longest strings ever passed would only be 8 bytes long - he reduced the parameter length to match. The end result: an analysis that would ordinarily take an entire business day would be done in a half hour.
No doubt about it - Steve was the man. And better yet, it wasn't even his company's fault: the primary contractor was responsible for that particular module.
AFTERMATH
At their next "CONFIDENTIAL" meeting, the Project Manager started without a word of small talk. "So do you have something for me?"
Steve smirked and nodded, with a smug Yeah, you better believe I do! and handed over the documentation with a very nice "before and after" graph on the first page.
"WOW!" the project manager was shocked, "This is good!...REALLY GOOD!"
Before Steve could even explain how he did it, the project manager jumped in again. "However," he said slowly, "we're going to have to sit on this for now. We can't tell them about this."
Steve shot back a quizzical look as the project manager explained. As it turned out, there was a big political fight going on with the primary contractor about the project. The primary was blaming Steve's company for overall Electrical Capabilities slowness and Steve's company was blaming the hardware supplied by the primary. Not that it really mattered, because there was a planned upgrade to the Electrical Capabilities system that, among other things, promised much higher performance.
"It's only a single line code change," Steve implored, "it would take all of five seconds to explain. Then the users would be up and run-"
"Yeah, yeah," he brushed off, "we'll keep it as our 'ace in the hole' in case they complain about slowness after the upgrade. We'll show 'em that we're not the ones who are causing all the problems."
"But isn't the upgrade several months away?" Steve rhetorically asked, "we can get them to implement it now and save thousands of client man hours in the mean time."
The project manager glared, "you're not going to share the patch information. It's confidential."
As the planned upgrade date came closer and closer, the likelihood of actually upgrading seemed less and less likely. When the date had come and gone, the upgrade project was "put on hold until next quarter". And it stayed on hold for quarter after quarter after quarter.
Five years later, when it came time for budget cuts, the entire Electrical Capabilities project — military personnel and all — was cut for good. Apparently, the auditors weren't too thrilled that engineers just sat around all day, waiting for some program to run.Brought to you by the Non-WTF Job Board:



]]> 41.85 -87.65 Tue, 07 Jul 2009 10:57:12 +0200 41.85 -87.65 Tue, 07 Jul 2009 09:59:59 +0200 We recently upgraded our database server to 48 GB of memory -- because hardware is cheap, and programmers are expensive.

Imagine our surprise, then, when we rebooted the server and saw only 32 GB of memory available in Windows Server 2008. Did we install the memory wrong? No, the BIOS screen reported the full 48 GB of memory. In fact, the system information applet even reports 48 GB of memory:



But there's only 32 GB of usable memory in the system, somehow.




Did you feel that? A great disturbance in the Force, as if 17 billion bytes simultaneously cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. It's so profoundly sad.

That's when I began to suspect the real culprit: weasels.



No. Not the cute weasels. I'm referring to angry, evil marketing weasels.



That's more like it. Those marketing weasels are vicious.

We belatedly discovered post-upgrade that we are foolishly using Windows Server 2008 Standard edition. Which has been arbitrarily limited to 32 GB of memory. Why? So the marketing weasels can segment the market.


It's sort of like if you were all set to buy that new merino wool sweater, and you thought it was going to cost $70, which is well worth it, and when you got to Banana Republic it was on sale for only $50! Now you have an extra $20 in found money that you would have been perfectly happy to give to the Banana Republicans!

Yipes!

That bothers good capitalists. Gosh darn it, if you're willing to do without it, well, give it to me! I can put it to good use, buying a SUV or condo or Mooney or yacht one of those other things capitalists buy!

In economist jargon, capitalists want to capture the consumer surplus.

Let's do this. Instead of charging $220, let's ask each of our customers if they are rich or if they are poor. If they say they're rich, we'll charge them $349. If they say they're poor, we'll charge them $220.

Now how much do we make? Back to Excel. Notice the quantities: we're still selling the same 233 copies, but the richest 42 customers, who were all willing to spend $349 or more, are being asked to spend $349. And our profits just went up! from $43K to about $48K! NICE!

Capture me some more of that consumer surplus stuff!


How many versions of WIndows Server 2008 are there? I count at least six. They're capturing some serious consumer surplus, over there in Redmond.


Datacenter Edition
Enterprise Edition
Standard Edition
Foundation
Web
HPC


Already, I'm confused. Which one of these versions allows me to use all 48 GB of my server's memory? There are no less than six individual "compare" pages to slice and dice all the different features each version contains. Just try to make sense of it all. I dare you. No, I double dog dare you! Oh, and by the way, there's zero pricing information on any of these pages. So open another browser window and factor that into your decisionmaking, too.

I don't mean to single out Microsoft here; lots of companies use this segmented pricing trick. Even Web 2.0 darlings 37 Signals.



Heck, our very own product segments the market.



37signals just does it .. prettier, that's all. They're still asking you if you're poor or rich, and charging you more if you're rich.

Eric Sink also advocates the same "rich customer, poor customer" software pricing policy:


In an ideal world, the price would be different for every customer. The "perfect" pricing scheme would charge every customer a different amount, extracting from each one the maximum amount they are willing to pay.


The IT guy at Podunk Lutheran College has no money: Gratis.
The IT guy at a medium-sized real estate agency has some money: $500.
The IT guy at a Fortune 100 company has tons of money: $50,000.


You can never make your pricing "perfect," but you can do much better than simply setting one constant price for all situations. By carefully tuning all these details, you can find ways to charge more money from the people who are willing to pay more.


This sort of pricing seems exploitative, but it can also be an act of public good -- remember that the poorest customers are paying less; with a one-size-fits-all pricing policy, they might not be able to afford the product at all. Drug companies often follow the same pricing model when selling life-saving drugs to third-world countries. First-world countries end up subsidizing the massive costs of drug development, but the whole world benefits.

What I object to isn't the money involved, but the mental overhead. The whole thing runs so contrary to the spirit of Don't Make Me Think. Sure, don't make us customers think. Unless you want us to think about how much we'd like to pay you, that is.

And what are we paying for? The privilege of flipping the magic bits in the software that say "I am blah edition!" It's all so.. anticlimactic. All that effort, all that poring over complex feature charts and stressing out about pricing plans, and for what? Just to get the one simple, stupid thing I care about -- using all the memory in my server.

Perhaps these complaints, then, point to one unsung advantage of open source software:

Open source software only comes in one edition: awesome.

The money is irrelevant; the expensive resource here is my brain. If I choose open source, I don't have to think about licensing, feature matrices, or recurring billing. I know, I know, we don't use software that costs money here, but I'd almost be willing to pay for the privilege of not having to think about that stuff ever again.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm having trouble deciding between Windows 7 Smoky Bacon Edition and Windows 7 Kenny Loggins Edition. Bacon is delicious, but I also love that Footloose song..



[advertisement] Interested in agile? See how a world-leading software vendor is practicing agile.


]]> 41.85 -87.65 Tue, 07 Jul 2009 09:59:59 +0200 In programming, abstractions are powerful things:


Joel Spolsky has an article in which he states


All non-trivial abstractions, to some degree, are leaky.


This is overly dogmatic - for example, bignum classes are exactly the same regardless of the native integer multiplication. Ignoring that, this statement is essentially true, but rather inane and missing the point. Without abstractions, all our code would be completely interdependent and unmaintainable, and abstractions do a remarkable job of cleaning that up. It is a testament to the power of abstraction and how much we take it for granted that such a statement can be made at all, as if we always expected to be able to write large pieces of software in a maintainable manner.


But they can cause problems of their own. Let's consider a particular LINQ to SQL query, designed to retrieve the most recent 48 Stack Overflow questions.


var posts =
(from p in DB.Posts
where
p.PostTypeId == PostTypeId.Question &&
p.DeletionDate == null &&
p.Score >= minscore
orderby p.LastActivityDate descending
select p).
Take(maxposts);


The big hook here is that this is code the compiler actually understands. You get code completion, compiler errors if you rename a database field or mistype the syntax, and so forth. Perhaps best of all, you get an honest to goodness post object as output! So you can turn around and immediately do stuff like this:


foreach (var post in posts.ToList())
{
Render(post.Body);
}


Pretty cool, right?

Well, that Linq to SQL query is functionally equivalent to this old-school SQL blob. More than functionally, it is literally identical, if you examine the SQL string that LINQ generates behind the scenes:


string query =
"select top 48 * from Posts
where
PostTypeId = 1 and
DeletionDate is null and
Score >= -4
order by LastActivityDate desc";


This text blob is of course totally opaque to the compiler. Fat-finger a syntax error in here, and you won't find out about it until runtime. Even if it does run without a runtime error, processing the output of the query is awkward. It takes row level references and a lot of tedious data conversion to get at the underlying data.


var posts = DB.ExecuteQuery(query);

foreach (var post in posts.ToList());
{
Render(post["Body"].ToString());
}


So, LINQ to SQL is an abstraction -- we're abstracting away raw SQL and database access in favor of native language constructs and objects. I'd argue that Linq to SQL is a good abstraction. Heck, it's exactly what I asked for five years ago.

But even a good abstraction can break down in unexpected ways.

Consider this optimization, which is trivial in the old-school SQL blob code: instead of pulling down every single field in the post records, why not pull just the id number? Makes sense, if that's all I need. And it's faster -- much faster!



select top 48 * from Posts827 ms
select top 48 Id from Posts260 ms


Selecting all columns with the star (*) operator is expensive, and that's what LINQ to SQL always does by default. Yes, you can specify lazy loading, but not on a per-query basis. Normally, this is a non-issue, because selecting all columns for simple queries is not all that expensive. And you'd think pulling down 48 measly little post records would be squarely in the "not expensive" category!

So let's compare apples to apples. What if we got just the id numbers, then retrieved the full data for each row?


select top 48 Id from Posts260 ms
select * from Posts where Id = 123453 ms


Now, retrieving 48 individual records one by one is sort of silly, becase you could easily construct a single where Id in (1,2,3..,47,48) query that would grab all 48 posts in one go. But even if we did it in this naive way, the total execution time is still a very reasonable (48 * 3 ms) + 260 ms = 404 ms. That is half the time of the standard select-star SQL emitted by LINQ to SQL!

An extra 400 milliseconds doesn't sound like much, but slow pages lose users. And why in the world would you perform a slow database query on every single page of your website when you don't have to?

It's tempting to blame Linq, but is Linq really at fault here? These seem like identical database operations to me:


1. Give me all columns of data for the top 48 posts.


or


1. Give me just the ids for the top 48 posts.
2. Retrieve all columns of data for each of those 48 ids.


So why in the wide, wide world of sports would one of these seemingly identical operations be twice as slow as the other?

The problem isn't Linq to SQL. The problem is that we're attempting to spackle a nice, clean abstraction over a database that is full of highly irregular and unusual real world behaviors. Databases that:


may not have the right indexes
may misinterpret your query and generate an inefficient query plan
are trying to perform an operation that doesn't fit well in available memory
are paging data from disks which might be busy at that particular moment
might contain irregularly sized column datatypes


That's what's so frustrating. We can't just pretend all our data is formatted into neat, orderly data structures sitting there in memory, lined up in convenient little queues for us to reach out and casually scoop them up. As I've demonstrated, even trivial queries can have bizarre behavior and performance characteristics that are not at all clear.

To its credit, Linq to SQL is quite flexible: we can use strongly typed queries, or we can use SQL blob queries that we cast to the right object type. That flexibility is critical, because so much of our performance depends on these quirks of the database. We default to the built-in Linq language constructs, and drop down to hand-tuning ye olde SQL blobs where the performance traces tell us we need to.

Either way, it's clear that you've got to know what's happening in the database every step of the way to even begin understanding the performance of your application, much less troubleshoot it.

I think you could make a fairly solid case that Linq to SQL is, in fact, a leaky and failed abstraction. Exactly the kind of thing Joel was complaining about. But I'd also argue that virtually all good programming abstractions are failed abstractions. I don't think I've ever used one that didn't leak like a sieve. But I think that's an awfully architecture astronaut way of looking at things. Instead, let's ask ourselves a more pragmatic question:


Does this abstraction make our code at least a little easier to write? To understand? To troubleshoot? Are we better off with this abstraction than we were without it?


It's our job as modern programmers not to abandon abstractions due to these deficiencies, but to embrace the useful elements of them, to adapt the working parts and construct ever so slightly less leaky and broken abstractions over time. Like desperate citizens manning a dike in a category 5 storm, we programmers keep piling up these leaky abstractions, shoring up as best we can, desperately attempting to stay ahead of the endlessly rising waters of complexity.

As much as I may curse Linq to SQL as yet another failed abstraction, I'll continue to use it. Yes, I may end up soggy and irritable at times. But it sure as heck beats drowning.



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]]> 33.4147 -111.909 Tue, 07 Jul 2009 07:00:17 +0200


]]> 37.775 -122.418 Thu, 25 Jun 2009 04:48:36 +0200 To recap the criticism of the bill, there are two big complaints: First is that it gives the president the power to turn off the Internet in an emergency. Second it requires mandatory licensing for "Infosec professionals." The second point is the one I take the most issue with.
Requiring mandatory licensing for a field as dynamic and changing as ours is just a bad idea. There are already a couple of government entities that require the CISSP as a condition of employment. Side-stepping a long winded rant about the CISSP, it is not an accurate measure of knowledge. There has been a concerted effort to liken our field to others such as electricians and general contractors. The problem is that things are changing so fast, any certification is basically worthless as soon as it is issued.
So if you're a US citizen please write your senators and encourage them to revise this bill.
read more]]> 34.0583 -106.891 Thu, 24 Jul 2008 15:56:59 +0200 28.5381 -81.3794 Thu, 17 Dec 2009 21:03:00 +0100 48.15 17.1167 Thu, 02 Jul 2009 07:35:36 +0200 33.7489 -84.3881 Thu, 02 Apr 2009 23:36:06 +0200 52.35 4.91667 Thu, 02 Apr 2009 16:53:23 +0200
Research Description
Using Excited Atoms in Quantum Computing


Organization
University of Wisconsin-Madison


Location
Wisconsin


Technology Sector
Computing

]]> 38.895 -77.0367 Sun, 27 Jan 2008 17:15:36 +0100 51.5667 4.8 Sun, 25 Jan 2009 19:38:01 +0100 Den Link zum Download findet Ihr hier.]]> 50.9833 11.3167 Sun, 07 Jun 2009 19:15:44 +0200 Leider ändert sich dadurch die URL des RSS-Feeds. Abonniert ihn also bitte neu unter www.schockwellenreiter.de/feed/.
Technorati-Tags: Interna ]]> 52.5167 13.4 Sun, 05 Jul 2009 14:36:33 +0200 50.1167 8.68333 Sat, 27 Jun 2009 13:52:36 +0200
SGX520 (7 MPolys/s, 250Mpx/s) for the handheld mobile market
SGX530/1 (14 MPolys/s) for the handheld mobile market
SGX535 and SGX540 (28 MPolys/s) for handheld high end mobile, portable, [...]]]> 40.6403 22.9439 Sat, 18 Jul 2009 14:10:00 +0200 50.9333 6.95 Sat, 15 Aug 2009 21:51:50 +0200 32.3667 -86.3 Sat, 14 Nov 2009 18:04:11 +0100 45.1667 28.8 Sat, 13 Jun 2009 14:07:04 +0200 The reply turned out to be longer than I’d originally intended, so here it is as its [...]]]> 32.5556 35.85 Sat, 06 Jun 2009 16:05:16 +0200 0.533333 101.45 Sat, 04 Jul 2009 09:01:30 +0200



While the Ozzy lawsuit aimed at Iommi seems to be trying to make Ozzy part of the story it’s obvious that fans like this don’t [...]]]> 47.1856 -122.292 Sat, 04 Jul 2009 00:15:17 +0200 Il Native Development Kit consente agli sviluppatori di implementare applicazioni o parti di applicazioni utilizzando i linguaggi nativi di Android come il C ed il C++.
Il NDK va ad affiancare l’SDK [...]]]> 41.9 12.4833 Mon, 29 Jun 2009 20:29:53 +0200 However, failed design after failed design led to much frustration. In my weakened, feeble state I decided that spending hours of an evening in front of Photoshop was simply not an option I wished to continue playing with. Instead, I resorted to the dreaded option of downloading a template (*gag* / *vomit* / etc). I bought the BLOG THEME GREEN PSD (descriptive name, I know) and did some heavy tweaking to make it look more Jem-esque (the irony being I spent more time tweaking this than I did creating my previous layout.)
Credit for the cheesy comment icon goes to DryIcons, the ninja to IconBuffet (as usual) and of course, the base layout 'iMike'... and I'm sorry for doing this to your lovely design.
At this point the only tasks left are to style the comments (in progress), and to liven up the dreaded sub-navigation (see the sidebar on any of my main sections). The latter of which I'm all out of ideas for and therefore welcome input from all of the design geniuses that read my blog.]]> 52.6333 -2.5 Mon, 29 Jun 2009 15:55:11 +0200

Firstly, by allowing the user to code in Visual Studio it is far easier to develop and debug. Because the developer can make use of intellisense & object explorer, it means even [...]

]]> 51.5 -0.116667 Mon, 23 Mar 2009 02:27:35 +0100 51.4167 -0.833333 Mon, 23 Feb 2009 02:05:34 +0100
Zur Zeit ist es ganz einfach die Petition für ein Grundeinkommen zu unterstützen.

Die E-Petitionen des Deutschen Bundestages laden euch ein, über Petitionen per Mausklick abzustimmen. Die Petition für das Grundeinkommen kann noch bis zum 10.2.2009 gezeichnet werden.

Hier eine kurzen Zusammenfassung:

Text der Petition
Der Deutsche Bundestag möge beschließen ... das bedingungsloses Grundeinkommen einzuführen.

Begründung
Unser...]]> 53.55 10 Mon, 22 Jun 2009 22:00:00 +0200 55.7522 37.6156 Mon, 19 Jan 2009 21:22:24 +0100
Here's a situation that's affecting more and more beta testers as the shift in operating system generations continues: You have the latest beta of Windows Server 2008 R2, a product which may ship next year but could conceivably ship sooner if Microsoft keeps it in sync with the Windows 7 roadmap. And you're used to using Virtual Server 2005 R2 (Microsoft's fond of that little add-on phrase, "R2") for testing new builds of Windows Server...but now you can't. You see, Virtual Server only works with 32-bit guest OSes, and there's no such thing as 32-bit Windows Server any more -- not with R2. What's more, you may only be running a 32-bit OS on the physical host platform.

How do you test WS2K8 R2 without installing it on a physical 64-bit platform all to itself?]]> 39.0436 -77.4878 Mon, 15 Jun 2009 16:02:59 +0200 37.9833 23.7333 Mon, 15 Feb 2010 10:51:38 +0100 42.6833 23.3167 Mon, 08 Dec 2008 16:28:13 +0100 52.25 21 Mon, 06 Jul 2009 23:01:48 +0200 40.5819 -74.9594 Mon, 06 Jul 2009 20:09:14 +0200 40.5819 -74.9594 Mon, 06 Jul 2009 18:38:00 +0200 32.7153 -117.156 Mon, 06 Jul 2009 18:30:00 +0200
Adobe also announced a new product offering called the FMS Connector for C++ SDK, that is also available today for licensing. No details around the license terms have been made public yet, but anyone who is interested in the product can contact FMSOEMinquiries@adobe.com. The connector can be used to publish live audio, video and metadata into Flash Media Server.]]> 10.6317 -71.6406 Mon, 06 Jul 2009 17:59:52 +0200 33.9297 -87.6786 Mon, 06 Jul 2009 17:53:11 +0200 For more than five years the largest BitTorrent tracker on the Internet has been been operated informally by a small group of friends. This will soon change as Global Gaming Factory takes over the ship to explore seas unknown. TorrentFreak caught up with Pirate Bay's Peter Sunde to review the past week's events and to look ahead to the future.]]> 41.85 -87.65 Mon, 06 Jul 2009 16:32:00 +0200 47.6064 -122.331 Mon, 06 Jul 2009 16:00:01 +0200 A follow-up to

why ABBA songs are so catchy:

Vitaly Komar, Alex Melamid,
and

David Soldier developed a song

scientifically engineered

to be the most unwanted song ever:
By their calculations, "fewer than 200 individuals of the world's
total population would enjoy this piece."


Ah, opera rap.


Also check out

The Most Wanted Paintings.
America's Most Wanted Painting contains
"an autumnal landscape with wild animals, a family enjoying
the outdoors, the color blue,

and George Washington."

]]> 47.6064 -122.331 Mon, 06 Jul 2009 14:56:34 +0200
Who are these teams you may ask?

Allstar mix of greatest ET players, former OC champion...]]> 51.5 -0.116667 Mon, 06 Jul 2009 06:00:00 +0200 33.7489 -84.3881 Mon, 06 Jul 2009 06:00:00 +0200 40.7142 -74.0064 Fri, 26 Jun 2009 16:14:40 +0200 48.1 16.3667 Fri, 22 Dec 2006 15:00:26 +0100 So bietet T-Mobile beim Vertragsabschluss online bis zu 3.600 Frei-SMS.
Klarmobil verschenkt zum Fest mal eben 150 Freiminuten.
Und debitel erlässt für viele Tarife die Anschlussgebühr in Höhe von 24,95 Euro.]]> 48.1667 11.8167 Fri, 15 Aug 2008 00:11:04 +0200
Die Evolutiondays finden am 29.-31.08.2008 im Veranstaltungszentrum Niklasdorf statt. Zahlreiche SideActs sowie Sonderangebote wie schon vorhandenes Netzwerkkabel am Platz und 8 WCG Slots für die National Finals erwarten die Teilnehmer. Weitere Informationen zur LAN findet ihr unter http://www.evolutiondays.org

Kommen wir nun zur Gewinnfrage: „Wie oft hat die Evolutiondays LAN schon stattgefunden?“

Die -hoffentlich- richtigen Antworten sendet ihr an folgende E-Mail-Adresse:

gewinnspiel@gamer-network.com
oder c.miklos@gamer-network.com

Der Einsendeschluss ist der 15.08.2008. Alle glücklichen Gewinner werden per E-Mail informiert!

Wir wünschen viel Glück!

...]]> 48.2 16.3667 Fri, 12 Jun 2009 21:04:29 +0200 Schon anfangs letzter Woche ist er angekommen, der Wichtelstrang vom Farbstrickwichteln. , und ich war ganz überrascht, dass da schon “Goodies” dabei waren: Drei Päckchen “Wibele”, die bereits alle genascht sind und ein leckerer Erdbeer-Sahne Tee, genau richtig für die Jahreszeit! Ganz herzlichen Dank an Wapiti!
Das wunderschöne Wolle-Seide-Bambus-Garn ist [...]]]> 44.3001 -76.4661 Fri, 12 Dec 2008 10:49:00 +0100 45.8 16